6 die when driver goes wrong way on Calif. freeway

Feb. 10, 2014
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Officials investigate the scene of a multiple vehicle accident where six people were killed on the westbound Pomona Freeway in Diamond Bar, Calif., on Sunday morning. / AP/Watchara Phomicinda, San Gabriel Valley Tribune

by John Bacon and Michael Winter, USA TODAY

by John Bacon and Michael Winter, USA TODAY

A 21-year-old California woman arrested for allegedly being intoxicated and killing six people in a wrong-way freeway crash early Sunday was convicted of drunken driving when she was 17 years old, according to Department of Motor Vehicle records cited by the Los Angeles Times.

The records also show that her license restrictions on Olivia Carolee Culbreath's reinstated license were lifted just days before the horrific high-speed crash Sunday about 4:40 a.m. in Diamond Bar, at the junction of two major freeways. The dead included four members of a family and Culbreath's older sister.

Culbreath, of Fontana, was hospitalized at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center in serious condition with a broken femur and a ruptured bladder, California Highway Patrol spokesman Rodrigo Jimenez said. The new mother was arrested on suspicion of felony drunken driving and felony manslaughter, and is being held under guard.

Culbreath was initially traveling north on the southbound 57 Freeway at up to 100 mph before she merged onto the westbound 60 Freeway heading east, witnesses told the CHP. Her red Chevry Camaro then hit a 1998 Ford Explorer head-on, and another vehicle hit the Explorer.

The impact killed two people in the Explorer -- Gregorio Mejia-Martinez, 47, and Ester Delgado -- and two passengers in Culbreath's car -- her sister, Maya Louise Culbreath, 24, of Rialto, and Kristin Melissa Young, 24, of Chino.

Two other family members in the Explorer -- Leticia Ibarra, 42, and Jessica Jasmine Mejia, 20 -- were declared dead at a hospital. All four were from Huntington Park, southeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Wendell Johnson of Rancho Cucamonga, a friend of Culbreath's, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that the group in Culbreath's car had been on a "girls' night out" in Fullerton. He said he found out about the "horrible" accident reading his Twitter feed Sunday morning.

"It's the worst way to learn something like this," he said. "This is just horrible."

He said Culbreath had recently had a baby and he was supposed to see her at home later Sunday.

Joel Cortez, 57, of Ontario, the driver of the third car, escaped with scratches and severe bruises. His son, Jonathan Cortez, told KABC-TV that his father is in a lot of pain.

"All he remembers really is just the airbag going off and he was just moving and moving, and finally the car came to a stop," Jonathan Cortez told KABC. "He had looked around, and there were people lying on the ground. And he said it was like something you would see out of a movie.

"We're actually really blessed to the fact that we still have him. We know that six people have been killed from this, and we send our condolences to those families and friends of the victims."